For Battered Latina Immigrants: Dwindling Resources, But Also Hope
De Colores, a domestic violence shelter in Phoenix, specializes in helping undocumented Spanish-speaking migrant women like her.
De Colores, a domestic violence shelter in Phoenix, specializes in helping undocumented Spanish-speaking migrant women like her.
This week the public radio program Making Contact features a story by Feet in Two Worlds reporter Valeria Fernández about the impact of an immigration raid on a family in Phoenix, Arizona. Valeria wrote the following reporter’s notebook about her experiences covering this story. You can listen to the story pressing “play” below or to find a station near you that carries the program click here.
[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/radioproject/MakingCon_091021_Ax.mp3]PHOENIX, Arizona — When I arrived at Katherine Figueroa’s house, it had only been two days since her parents –both undocumented immigrants– were arrested during a raid by Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies at the Phoenix car wash where they both worked.
Kathy is an outspoken 9-year-old who makes friends easily. She welcomes people with her easy smile, even those she has just met. She was born in the U.S. and like many children of undocumented parents she has lived in constant fear that her parents could be deported.
I knew this wasn’t going to be an ordinary story. It was going to be one I would follow for months, and very closely every week.
It’s the story behind news reports that people in the Phoenix area have grown accustomed to: another sweep, another immigration raid in Maricopa County. It is about what happens to communities and families impacted by a crackdown that has made Arizona ground zero in a divisive national debate over immigration.
FI2W reporter Valeria Fernández was interviewed this morning on public radio’s The Takeaway to talk about an announced immigration raid by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
“There’s no federal law that gives him the authority to do these immigration sweeps, but he says that he can do it,” Valeria said during her conversation with The Takeaway’s Celeste Headlee and John Hockenberry, in which she explained the sheriff’s controversial tactics to detain undocumented immigrants in the Phoenix area.
You can listen to the interview below and you can visit the show’s story “A Rogue Sheriff Roams in Arizona.”
[audio:http://audio.wnyc.org/takeaway/takeaway101609j.mp3]Phoenix-based FI2W reporter Valeria Fernández produced a radio piece for NPR’s Latino USA on immigrants who work in the dairy industry and the farmers who hire them.
Here, Valeria narrates how she produced the piece, which airs this weekend on Latino USA. To listen to the piece, press “play” below.
[audio:http://latinousa.kut.org/wp-content/lusaaudio/859segAZdairies.mp3]
For almost two years now, one of my sources here in Arizona had insisted that I do a story about immigrants working in dairies. I finally started to work on this one about five months ago, before I even knew which direction it was going to take, or even that it was going to become a radio piece. I needed to become familiar with the universe of dairies at a time when Arizona was facing an intense crackdown on illegal immigration.
There was naturally going to be fear and resistance on the part of immigrant workers. For about two years now, the state has had a law in place that sanctions companies who knowingly hire undocumented labor.
ALSO: Read a diary by the daughter of a Mexican immigrant dairy worker.
The law has been used mostly to conduct work-site raids in businesses, resulting in the arrest of a couple of hundred workers. The number is not large, but the chilling effect on local immigrant communities is much bigger.
In a couple of ways, this was unexplored territory for me. I was as nervous as the subjects of the story. Not only was I going to leave the comfort of print, but also, I was going to do it in English, my second language. I feared leaving my small notepad and using a microphone instead. Often times I would just tuck it away, and listen to people to help them relax.
There have been stories about workers in agriculture, but I wanted to do a story about what life was like in the dairies. I had all sorts of preconceptions.
This diary was written by the 12-year-old daughter of a Mexican immigrant dairy worker. Her name has been changed to protect her identity. Click here to go to the main story to read more about her family and to listen to a radio piece about immigrants and dairy farmers by FI2W‘s Valeria Fernández for NPR’s Latino USA.
Well, my name is Laura. I was born in Arizona and lived here for about a year or so when I moved to the dairy. So I’ve been living here for most of my life.
I live here with my mom, and dad, my two brothers and my little sister. It can be fun and boring living in a dairy.
For the first part, I don’t like living here ’cause the smell!! Yes, there’s times when it smells really awful. And times you can really smell nothing.
Also most the time there’s nothing to do! Well, like, there’s not much trailers here, only like 5! Also there’s not much kids my age around here.
Then sometimes I am really bored and can’t just walk to a friend’s house or something: it’s too far! So I might feel left out most of the time.
Now, the thing I do kinda like is that you can take a walk and see the cows; now I think that’s pretty fun to walk around. Also there’s a lot of open space here! In most houses there’s not a lot of space.
So here you can have a party and barbecue. Okay, so that’s partly most of my life. I’m mostly used to it, so I don’t mind much.
I hope my dad doesn’t lose his job and (we) live here for a couple more years or so. And I hope for those people that don’t want Mexicans here to think it over, ’cause Mexicans have done a big difference to this country to make it a better place.
FI2W reporter Aswini Anburajan produced a radio piece for NPR’s Latino USA on Father James Manship, a Roman Catholic priest in New Haven, Conn., who teaches his immigrant parishioners how to stand up for their civil rights, and who has been in the news in the past for being arrested in a confrontation with local police officers. Here, Aswini narrates how she managed to produce the piece, which aired on Latino USA and which you can listen to below.
[audio:http://latinousa.kut.org/wp-content/lusaaudio/856seg01.mp3]If you think that ethnic reporting isn’t critical to knowing a community, read on. This is the first piece I’ve done for Feet in 2 Worlds that hasn’t been on Indian Americans. The basis of FI2W is to get reporters to write about their own communities, but even I didn’t realize why this is so important until I delved into a project for Latino USA.
My piece was originally supposed to be on the economic life of a day laborer or someone new to the country, undocumented and trying to establish a life in the U.S. That piece remains undone. Being an Indian American with some high school Spanish under my belt, I thought it would be a cake walk. Call some social service agencies, reach out to immigrant coalitions, and I could “break in.”
Four months later, I had to think again. Without truly knowing a community, or having cultural or language associations with them, I found it impossible to get through and talk to individuals who were undocumented. It wasn’t that every door I knock on was slammed in my face. Most of the time, people pretended they weren’t home. This ranged from individuals I knew with ties to the Latino community to social service agencies.
“While there are anti-Semites in this country, there is even a larger number –and that group is growing faster– of people opposing anti-Semites, the anti-anti-Semites.”
[ Rabbi Michael Schudrich ]
The history of Jews in Poland is long and not without controversy, especially due to their persecution during World War II. The fact is, until that war started Warsaw was a center of Europe’s Jewish community.
Now, construction has started there on the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
It will not simply be a museum about the Holocaust. The museum team wants to focus more broadly on centuries of Jewish life and achievements in Poland.
Feet in 2 Worlds reporter Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska produced a radio piece about the museum from Warsaw that aired Tuesday on PRI’s The World.
You can listen to the story here or you can visit The World‘s page.
[audio:http://64.71.145.108/audio/0825095.mp3]
You can see more pictures at the Feet in 2 Worlds Flickr page.
Following President Barack Obama’s announcement postponing Congressional action on immigration reform until next year and the outcry from immigration activists, Feet in 2 Worlds web editor Diego Graglia appeared Monday on The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, New York Public Radio, to discuss the situation.
Also featured was Amy Gottlieb, director of the Immigrant Rights Program at the American Friends Service Committee, who talked about problems with the immigration detention system.
You can listen to the segment here or visit the show’s page.
[audio:http://audio.wnyc.org/bl/bl081709dpod.mp3]Feet in 2 Worlds reporter Martina Guzmán reported Thursday on WDET’s Detroit Today on, “techno artists who once spun records in Detroit basements, abandoned warehouses and after-hours clubs and are now considered royalty on the electronic dance club circuit in Japan and Europe.”
In her report, Martina narrates how the artists’ sound was, “influenced by automobile assembly lines and the city that now has a Spanish accent,” according to Detroit Today‘s webpage
You can listen to the piece here or visit WDET’s site for the whole show.
[audio:http://www.jocelyngonzales.net/FI2W/wdet_martina_latintechno.mp3]PHOENIX, Arizona — While the Obama administration has established new federal guidelines to focus on employers that break the law by hiring undocumented workers, local authorities in Maricopa County are going in the opposite direction, and increasing the crackdown on employees. Just today sheriff’s deputies conducted one of the largest raids to date at a paper plant in Phoenix.
Last Friday dozens of children took to the streets to call for an end to immigration raids by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and to bring attention to the social and economic impact the raids have had on their families.
“I want to tell Sheriff Joe Arpaio to let my parents alone and let them free. And leave the people that are working out, and (instead) get the people that are killing others and robbing,” said Katherine Figueroa, a 9-year-old U.S. citizen.
Katherine’s parents Sandra and Carlos Figueroa –both undocumented — were arrested in June in a raid at a Phoenix carwash where they worked , and charged with identity theft. Katherine found out about their arrest when she saw her dad detained on a local TV news program.
It’s been two months since Katherine has shared a meal with her parents. She now stays with one of her aunts.
“He needs to stop the raids is not fair what he’s doing to people,” said Katherine who held a cardboard sign in the shape of a colorful orange and black butterfly.
Listen to Katherine here:
[audio:http://www.jocelyngonzales.net/FI2W/children3.mp3]The Monarch butterfly was the theme for the young marchers because it endures an epic migration between Mexico and the U.S. for its survival.
Chanting “Obama, Obama we want our parents back,” the children walked in the hot Arizona summer from Madison Jail, were their parents are detaine to Sheriff Arpaio’s offices in downtown Phoenix.
Listen to the children chanting:
[audio:http://www.jocelyngonzales.net/FI2W/children1.mp3]